Amulet Books Archives - Someday My Printz Will Come

The Lie Tree

December 12, 2016 by Karyn Silverman 16 Comments

Oh, The Lie Tree. For so long — since January, in fact, when I was lucky enough to get my hands on an ARC — I’ve been holding this up as an exemplar of great writing. Along with The Passion of Dolssa this has consistently held top billing in my head. It’s brilliant and unconventional; the writing is excellent; the themes unexpected: religion and science and feminism, oh my, with a lovely side of what it means to grow up.

And look, I still stand by this one as an excellent book. But after re-reading, I find I also have some questions. Let’s dig in!

The Steep and Thorny Way

November 18, 2016 by Sarah Couri 3 Comments

The Steep and Thorny Way by Cat Winters
Amulet Books, March 2016
Reviewed from a final copy

Not a roundup, not a Best Of list, not a bird OR a plane, it’s a review! With three stars and a shout out in the comments of our original list, this is historical fiction with a twist — a Hamlet-infused ghosty twist. This is not the only Shakespeare inspired fiction that we’ve looked at this year, and it’s certainly not the only historical fiction. What makes this a standout title? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Books to look for, Fiction Tagged With: Amulet Books, cat winters, historical fiction, march 2016 pubs, Printz, the steep and thorny way, three star books

Fantastic Fantasy, Scintillating Science Fiction (a Twofer)

November 16, 2015 by Karyn Silverman 18 Comments

Canadian Mountain Goat (you’ll understand after you read the post) by Eve Livesey.

For the reader, like me, who prefers fantasy to reality, at least in books, this has been a pretty knockout year. We seem to finally be fully beyond the various waves (paranormal romance, dystopias, love triangles) that have dominated YA fantasy and science fiction for the past decade. This has been a slow creep, and this year marks the first year where I don’t see any dominant trends. Microtrends, sure — the Arabian Nights and djinn tales have been increasing each year, series fiction is still quite common, and really we’ll never entirely be done with dystopic fiction (that usually isn’t technically set in a dystopia).

(Having said all that, someone will probably point out some trend I am willfully ignoring. I still say this is a banner year.)

So rather than an army of same old same old, this year has brought us a legion of fresh, original genre fiction — I’ve already talked about The Archivist Wasp and Razorhurst, and we’ve all admired Bone Gap and Shadowshaper (and yes, I KNOW we need to review those already. We haven’t forgotten). Joy had a lot of admiration for More Happy Than Not; The Walls Around Us is a tour de force, really, that I am still thinking about. Even genre books we haven’t 100% adored and/or may not be covering here (The Game of Love and Death, Walk on Earth a Stranger, Newt’s Emerald) are distinctly their own books and don’t fit into any easy boxes.

In short, I’m calling this the year fantasy finally moved on from blockbusters and into its own (magical) pride of place.

And today I’ve got not one but TWO fabulous genre books to add to the list of books we say nice things about.

Dark Horses

January 31, 2015 by Karyn Silverman 1 Comment

Some dark horses for your viewing entertainment.

For our final review of the season, squashed in at the 11th hour, we bring you a quick and dirty final roundup to shed a little bit of love on some books that we never got to discuss at length but that we still think deserve a little attention.

In Brief (at length)

December 11, 2014 by Someday 2 Comments

We’re called “Someday My Printz Will Come” for a reason; we kiss a lot of frogs. Which is necessary if we want to read widely — and we do, because that gives us the best sense of the year. The Printz is, after all, an award for literary excellence in the publication year — wider readership means we are assessing the books against as many of the competition as possible.

We can’t cover every book we collectively read — if you’re interested in seeing those lists, find us on Goodreads — and there are plenty of books we are happy to skip. But we wanted to take a moment to give out a few honorable mentions to some books that aren’t quite frogs, but they aren’t princes, or Printzs, either.

So, in brief, a roundup of some titles we don’t think need a lengthy discussion but did deserve some acknowledgement. The following books fall into one of two categories — either we read them and loved them, but sadly believe they have no chance when it comes to the Printz, OR they landed on our list for reasons of stars (we do our best to lay eyes on everything with three or more stars) or buzz, but we just can’t see them going the distance.

Romance Roundup, Summer Style!

November 13, 2013 by Joy Piedmont 3 Comments

The weather is getting colder, Starbucks broke out the red holiday cups , and Thanksgiving is just around the corner. But let’s go back to that happier—and warmer—time in late August when two novels about love were published: The Beginning of Everything and The Infinite Moment of Us. These two books aren’t on our long list, but in a year when contemporary realistic romance is ubiquitous, each of these novels has noteworthy qualities. Let’s snuggle up and discuss, shall we?

(By the way, you know we do spoilers here, right? Don’t say I didn’t warn you when I spill some major secrets.)

More Roundup (Debut Style!)

November 13, 2012 by Karyn Silverman 18 Comments

Amelia Anne Is Dead and Gone, Kat Rosenfield
Dutton, May 2012
Reviewed from ARC

Buzz and anticipation, impressive writing, and a whole that ends up not quite hitting it out of the park — haven’t we heard this story before?

Amelia Anne Is Dead and Gone has some really magnificent sentence level writing. Some of the best out there this year, even, although on occasion it’s almost too much. It’s yet another potential Morris contender, too, and — as with so many of the books that have crossover eligibility for the Morris — it probably has a better chance there, because it’s a great debut.

Dying to Know How this Is YA

October 19, 2012 by Karyn Silverman 13 Comments

Dying to Know You, Aidan Chambers
Amulet Books, April 2012
Reviewed from ARC

Look, Aidan Chambers is an immensely accomplished writer. He was one of the early Printz winners, people write critical essays about his books, and he plays quite impressively with form in many of his novels. He certainly has a a steady command of his language, and while there are aspects of Dying to Know You I don’t like, when it comes down to it a lot of this is stylistic quibbling and reader preference, which is not a Printz-worthy argument.

Not stylistic? The decision to have this ostensibly YA book narrated by a 75-year-old man.

75. Let that sink in for a moment.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Contenders, Fiction Tagged With: Aidan Chambers, Amulet Books, April pubs, four star books, Not really YA, P&P

Telling Tales

September 14, 2012 by Karyn Silverman 7 Comments

The Storyteller, Antonia Michaelis, translated by Miriam Debbage
Amulet Books, January 2012
Reviewed from ARC

This German import only received one star, and honestly, I’m not sure anyone is talking about it.

But I think this is an unsung, unnoted gem, and everyone needs to get a copy STAT.

And then read the book before you read any more of this post, because here be spoilers, and they would really spoil things. I am so glad I did not know what I was getting myself into when I started this, and I would hate to ruin the visceral experience of the book for anyone else.

So, in case that wasn’t clear enough: click beyond this point ONLY if you’ve already read The Storyteller. Or if you know you’ll never ever read it. (But then you’d be missing out.)

The Lie Tree

The Steep and Thorny Way

Fantastic Fantasy, Scintillating Science Fiction (a Twofer)

Dark Horses

In Brief (at length)

Romance Roundup, Summer Style!

More Roundup (Debut Style!)

Dying to Know How this Is YA

Telling Tales

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